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This guide covers installing the software on Vista, using IIS 7. For directions for Windows XP, please see here.

NOTE: We recommend that you maintain 3 functional types of installs:

Live Site (production server)- This is your public-facing live site.

Staged Site (production server or local install)- This is a clone of your live site. Perform modifications and test them here to protect your live site from issues and down-time.

Dev Site (production server or local install)- This is a completely stock out-of-the-box install where you can compare stock functionality and behavior with issues you get with your staged/live sites. This is also good for a quick resource of stock files as needed.

Pre-installation Procedures

The following 3 sections cover the installation of 3rd-party software required for the ASPDNSF software to run.

Note: Customers installing the software on shared hosting accounts can skip the directions in this section, as the hosting company will have done these steps for you.

Installing IIS

Windows Vista and Server 2008 should come with IIS7 preinstalled, though it may be required to enable some features that are not turned on by default. To do so, follow these steps:

1 – First, go to Start → Control Panel, and open Programs and Features

2 – In the panel on the left, click the “Turn Windows features on or off” link.

3 – In the window that opens, ensure that all of the options shown below are checked:

File Setup

The first step in installing the ASPDNSF software is to get the files in place on your machine.

Note: This guide assumes the files are being installed in the default location for IIS, C:\inetpub\wwwroot\. If your server configuration requires a different location, substitute that path during the install process.

Database Setup

Next, you need to create the database that the software will store your data in.

Note: The screenshots in this section are of a standard MS SQL Server Mgmt Studio install with no extra security measures in place. Your screens may look slightly different depending on the setup and security policies your administrator/host use.

1 – Open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and log in with the credentials given to you by your system administrator or host.

2 – Right-click on Databases in the tree view and click New Database.

3 – Enter a name for the database and click OK.

4 – Highlight the new database in the list and press CTRL-O on the keyboard. Navigate to the /db folder where you just extracted the new storefront files, and highlight the ‘Create AspDotNetStorefront Database’ file and click OK.

NOTE: The DB creation script does not create sample entity/product data in the new store. If this demo data is desired, after running the above script, you will also need to run an additional script against the DB the same way. For the MultiStore version, run the script named "Install Demo Website Data.sql". For MultiStore express, run "Install Express Demo Website Data.sql".

5 – Click the Execute button.

6 – Verify that the script ran with no errors.

7 – Now, you must modify the web.config file to connect to the database you just created. Navigate to the /web folder where you extracted the storefront files earlier and open up the file in notepad.

8 – Find the line pictured below, and change the ‘TBD’ to your own EncryptKey value. The value can be any combination of letters and numbers, and should be at least 10 characters long.

9 – Find the DBConn line pictured below, and change the following values:

NOTE: Your host or server admin must provide this information, AspDotNetStorefront cannot tell you what to use for these values.

• data source – This is the server/instance name where SQL is installed. If installing on a local server, this will often be simply ‘localhost’ or the machine name.
• initial catalog – This is the name of the database you just created.
• user id – the ID used to connect to the database
• password – the password used to connect to the database

10 – Save your changes in Notepad.

IIS Setup

The last step in the install is configuring IIS. Note: Your server admin or host may have to provide additional steps for this portion of the install, depending on the server configuration. These steps cover a basic install.

1 – First, open IIS Manager and expand the tree to view the folders under Default Web Site:

2 – Right-click on Default Web Site, and click ‘Add Application.

3 – Enter a name for your site in the Alias field (generally the same as the folder name) and then click the ‘Select’ button.